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The President's Emergency Operations Center is an underground facility
hardened to withstand blast overpressure from a nuclear detonation. On the way
to the tubular structure, Cheney was told that another plane, or a helicopter
loaded with explosives, was headed for the White House.
In the PEOC, the vice president was joined by Condoleezza Rice, the national
security adviser, and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, among others. They
were told that six commercial aircraft were unaccounted for, all of which were
potential missiles. One had supposedly crashed in Kentucky (not true), and
another in Pennsylvania (that report of a crash was valid; its passengers or
crew, apparently struggling with the hijackers, may have saved the White House).
According to a high White House official speaking to me on background, the
airliner that had taken off at Dulles -- AA Flight 77 -- ''did a 360'' (meaning
it changed direction from the White House) and at 9:45 slammed into the
Pentagon.
About that time, accounts began coming into PEOC that four international
flights were headed toward Washington over the Atlantic and another from Korea.
It could not be immediately determined that they were not hostile and part of
the terrorist scheme. U.S. fighter aircraft and an Awacs control aircraft were
scrambled aloft.
A threatening message received by the Secret Service was relayed to the
agents with the president that ''Air Force One is next.'' According to the high
official, American code words were used showing a knowledge of procedures that
made the threat credible.
(I have a second, on-the-record source about that: Karl Rove, the president's
senior adviser, tells me: ''When the president said 'I don't want some tinhorn
terrorists keeping me out of Washington,' the Secret Service informed him that
the threat contained language that was evidence that the terrorists had
knowledge of his procedures and whereabouts. In light of the specific and
credible threat, it was decided to get airborne with a fighter escort.'')
After the president put down at an Air Force base in Louisiana and made a
tape for broadcast (presumably no satellite was available for a live feed), he
was, in Rove's term, ''pretty antsy'' about not being at the center of command.
Bush made clear to Cheney, says my source who was in the bunker, his intense
desire to return to Washington immediately. The Secret Service objected
strongly. The vice president, a former secretary of defense, suggested Air Force
One go to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, headquarters of the Strategic Air
Command, with a communications facility where the president could convene the
National Security Council.
''It would have been irresponsible of him to come back, pounding his chest,''
says my source, ''when hostile aircraft may have been headed our way. Any
suggestion that he should have done so is ludicrous.''
Confession: I made just that suggestion in yesterday's column, which
stimulated two set-it-straight calls. Why didn't the V.P. make an appearance
during that long afternoon in Bush's stead? The official reason is that Cheney
was busy in the basement; the real reason, I think, is that he was unduly
concerned it would appear presumptuous.
The most worrisome aspect of these revelations has to do with the credibility
of the ''Air Force One is next'' message. It is described clearly as a threat,
not a friendly warning -- but if so, why would the terrorists send the message?
More to the point, how did they get the code-word information and transponder
know-how that established their mala fides?
That knowledge of code words and presidential whereabouts and possession of
secret procedures indicates that the terrorists may have a mole in the White
House -- that, or informants in the Secret Service, F.B.I., F.A.A. or C.I.A. If
so, the first thing our war on terror needs is an Angleton-type counterspy.
Cheney promptly called the president in Florida, who had just boarded Air
Force One, and urged him not to come back to Washington immediately.
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